


your name in the honeycomb

by closingdoors



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/F, Vanessa emotions but mostly fluff, in this house Charity doesn't abandon Vanessa in Cornwall lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 18:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21184205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closingdoors/pseuds/closingdoors
Summary: "Vanessa still can't help the way her throat automatically clogs at the wordwe. She'd spent so long thinking she was going to do all of this alone that it's hard, sometimes, to believe that they're really here."Some moments from their trip to Cornwall.





	your name in the honeycomb

On sentiments, jelly sweet and honey drunk  
I kissed the bees so sweetly  
And asked them to spell out your name in the honeycomb

**they didn't get it right, i'm sorry! asoftersea**

* * *

"Alright, babe?"

The world has a bleary haze to it when she wakes. Vanessa stretches her arms, blinking, trying to make sense of which direction the sun is shining.

She feels Charity drape herself over her back, their bare skin touching, her hair tickling her shoulders lightly. Vanessa breathes in deeply when Charity presses a lingering kiss to the top of her spine.

"Earth to Vanessa," Charity croons. "Anyone in there?" 

It's almost like it's still a dream, she feels that warm. Especially with Charity pressed up against her like that. She closes her eyes again, the tips of her fingers fuzzy. She feels Charity's fingers dance against the line of her jaw and she tips her head to give her better access.

"Sleepy today?" 

Vanessa nods into her pillow. Charity chuckles softly. She feels the puff of air wash over her skin.

Charity kisses her again, this time on her shoulder, and the weight of her disappears. Vanessa grunts, blindly groping and catching her arm. She tugs her close again and Charity lands with another quiet laugh.

"Stay," she grumbles.

"Someone's gotta look after the little devils, babe. Sleep," Charity murmurs. Vanessa opens her eyes long enough to catch the hint of her smile. "We'll be here when you wake up."

Vanessa's eyes drift closed again. 

* * *

A couple of the houses in the town have started decorating for Halloween. The boys trip over themselves in their haste to inspect the pumpkins and fake cobwebs. Johnny even lets go of Charity's hand and goes running full pelt after Moses, not looking over his shoulder once.

She takes up Charity's hand instead and they swing between them as they walk. This time of year, there aren't many tourists, mainly just the locals, so their little getaway has been peaceful so far. The weather's been mostly kind to them. It'd been relaxing to fall asleep to the sound of rain hitting the roof last night with Charity wrapped around her. Even if Moses _had _woken up in the middle of the night and tried to crawl into bed with them.

"Mummy, I can be a pumpkin," Johnny says once they've reached them. 

"Is that what you want to dress up as for Halloween?" 

"Don't you want to be something scary?" Charity interjects.

Johnny considers this for a moment and then shakes his head. "Pumpkin."

"What about you, Moses?" Vanessa asks, cupping the back of his head. "Any ideas?"

"I'm gonna be the drayman," he decides, and she's unable to hold back her laughter.

* * *

She thinks about her dad a lot, maybe too much, and she's not always kind. 

Charity must be able to tell because she always reaches out to squeeze her knee, or kiss her cheek, or rope her into a hug. Charity has always been a tactile lover; touch is her currency of love. This is something new entirely. It's a completely different kind of intimacy. 

They're sitting in a restaurant, the boys enthralled by the tablecloth they're encouraged to draw on, when someone passes by wearing her dad's aftershave. Instinctively, she finds herself turning. Seeking out his head of grey hair. Of course, he isn't there. The man is all wrong. He's short and squat and balding. 

Charity's hand covers her knee, her thumb rubbing back and forth. Vanessa remembers to breathe.

"You ever come to a place like this as a kid?" Charity asks, gesturing to the garish children's decorations around them. On the other side of the restaurant the servers have gathered to sing and dance their own version of 'happy birthday' to a little girl. "Frank treat you like a princess?"

"Um." Vanessa pauses, lips pressing into a hard line. "I don't... I don't really remember. I was only a kid when he left."

"Right. Of course. Sorry, babe." 

And then she's angry, angry that her dad had left, that he'd started a new family, that she hadn't been enough, that she'd been left behind, that her dad had left that new family after a pitiful few years and never really stopped to look back, never really apologised, never really took the fault for all the cracks in her childhood before he'd died.

"Ness," Charity whispers, flipping her hand palm-up.

Vanessa links their hands under the table and swallows back her tears.

"I'm alright," she assures her quietly.

"Alright," Charity says after a beat, leaning across to kiss her temple.

* * *

One evening, it storms outside. They set up a fort on the sofas and put the boys' favourite movies on. Moses falls asleep with his head resting on her stomach and Johnny's little hand stretches out towards her in her sleep.

She strokes the soft hair on top of Moses's head, watching him, the little flutter of his eyelashes as he dreams. Beside her, Charity snores loudly. 

Vanessa tips her head back against the sofa, staring out upside-down through the sliver of the curtain at the night sky. It's bright with lightning for a beautiful second. She smiles and lets herself fall into dreams.

* * *

"Be careful, Moses!" She calls, watching the little boy jump in dangerously close to the deep end.

Johnny shrieks with laughter, his armbands keeping him afloat unlike his brother, as the water splashes over him. Vanessa tenses and Charity appears from behind her magazine, eyebrows raised.

"Babe, they're fine. Relax for a second."

"I know," she insists, but she's still sitting on the edge of her seat.

Charity rolls her eyes and shoves her magazine to one side, shuffling to the edge of her seat too. The boys play happily, Moses swimming in circles around Johnny while pretending to be a shark. There's only a handful of other families using the indoor pool but she still worries when the older children get close. Or when the boys look a little too enraptured watching them diving in to the deep end.

"We should get him swimming lessons when we get back home," Charity says casually.

Vanessa still can't help the way her throat automatically clogs at the word _we. _She'd spent so long thinking she was going to do all of this alone that it's hard, sometimes, to believe that they're really here. 

"Or we could just take the armbands off _now _and see how he does," Charity adds, quirking one eyebrow. "Swimming's instinctual, babe."

The thought sets her teeth on edge. "We'll settle for swimming lessons." 

Charity rolls her eyes again, but it's not really malicious. She settles back in her seat with her magazine but Vanessa doesn't miss the way her eyes peek, ever so slightly, over the top, watching the boys.

"I love you," Vanessa murmurs.

Charity looks startled for a second. She eventually settles on a smile.

"Back at you, kid."

* * *

They leave the boys at a kid's holiday club one evening to spend some time together. Charity's eyeshadow is a little smokier than she usually wears and Vanessa wears a blouse that dips low on her cleavage. She can't help but admire their reflection when she catches sight of them in the restaurant window. They look good, but it's not just because they're dolled up - they look happy, in spite of everything they've gone through. 

"What're you smiling about?" Charity asks later as they walk along the pier.

"Nothing," she replies, tucking her chin and smile down against her chest.

They stand at the end, Charity's arm warm around her shoulders, watching the waves. They're choppy this late at night, a light spray of salt water splashing up close to them. She closes her eyes and breathes it in.

There's a memory somewhere, coming back to her, or maybe it's just the smell of the sea. She thinks she can hear her father calling her teeny. 

The problem with memories however is that they're not always real. She doesn't remember a lot of what her life had been like when her dad had been around. She remembers the feeling. She remembers completely idolising him. She remembers the loss of his love and throwing herself into any pair of arms that would hold her after her had left. 

Later, when they really should be getting dressed and leaving to collect the boys, she thinks about that again. The smell of salt water and the word _teeny. _He hadn't had a nickname for Tracy. She'd been given more of him than her sister had and yet she can't find a way to cherish those memories properly.

She has all of this leftover, irrational anger and nowhere to put it. She doesn't even really think she's angry with him anymore. Maybe she's just angry at herself for letting herself be so lonely because of him.

"You know," she says, shifting in Charity's arms, "it's been a long time since I've felt this safe." 

Charity frowns, brushing her hair back from her face. "What d'you mean, babe?"

She's come a long way, she realises, from her and Johnny and their little family of two. 

"I was alone. A lot. I had Rhona sometimes but that's not always the same, you know? I always looked for attention from men when I didn't even really want it. I just wanted..." she stops and rests her head against Charity's breast, listening to the sound of her heartbeat. "I'm _choosing _to hold on to you. I'm not begging to be held anymore. D'you know what I mean?" 

Charity sighs, her thighs tightening around Vanessa's hips, her arms wrapped around her back. 

"I know what you mean," she replies.

* * *

Charity lets her sleep in late again one morning. She yawns and shuffles out of the bedroom to find Charity sitting at the table with the boys. 

Johnny's sitting in her lap, drawing a stick figure of Noah who has an angry scowl. He's already drawn herself and Charity surrounded by a bunch of love hearts. Moses is drawing two dinosaurs getting married, unfazed by the comments Charity makes about it.

Johnny giggles when Charity whispers a joke in his ear. Vanessa pauses, her brew forgotten, watching them. 

For so long she'd worried how she'd explain Kirin's absence to Johnny once he was old enough to ask about him. She's always been determined to love him enough for the both of them, but she knows the kind of heartache being left behind by a father can create.

Johnny smacks a kiss against Charity's cheek and Vanessa turns away, her stomach full of butterflies.

* * *

The closer the get to the end of their holiday, the more she worries. This break has been good for her, she's more than grateful Charity had booked it, but whenever she thinks about Kerry and Amy the anger that she feels is just as bright in her chest. She doesn't trust herself not to do something stupid when they get back.

Charity plucks her hand from her lap, threading their fingers together and resting them in her own lap.

Vanessa glances over at her. Charity doesn't take her eyes off of the rubbish daytime television they're watching. She sighs, cupping Charity's cheek with her other hand, turning her towards her. She kisses her soundly, longer than she intends to, her toes curling. It's not hard to feel brave when she has Charity by her side.

* * *

It's too cold for the beach, but they take the boys anyway. Johnny and Moses plod along with their buckets and spades trying to build sandcastles with wet sand.

She stands back with her arm looped through Charity's, her cheek pressed to her shoulder. 

"You want to walk? Warm up?" Charity asks.

"No," she murmurs, tightening her hold. "I'm fine right here."

* * *

She remembers, as she's packing the boys' suitcase for home, her eighth birthday. Her dad had worn a shirt the same mint-green colour as the one she's holding right now. 

He'd pinned one of those comically large birthday badges to her dress before school and placed a candle in a chocolate muffin for her to wish on. They'd walked together, her hand in his, right to the school gates. 

The rest of the memory is murky, it slips out of her grasp, but it's enough. Vanessa lifts Johnny's t-shirt to her face to dry her tears as she cries through her laughter.

* * *

Halfway through the drive back home, they stop off at a quaint little pub. Charity claims they're just going to stretch their legs but soon enough the boys are running around in the beer garden and she and Charity are sharing a bowl of chips, the length of her thigh pressed against Charity's under the table.

Charity stops mid-chew when she catches her staring at her. "What? Have I got summat on my face?" 

"No." Vanessa smiles, enjoying the way Charity's frown deepens. "Thank you."

"For jumping your bones every five seconds?"

Vanessa's cheeks warm. "Thanks for that, too." 

Charity grins, popping another chip into her mouth. She winks. 

"Pleasure's mine, babe."

Vanessa knocks her shoulder and listens to Charity's laughter. Ahead of them, Johnny and Moses are attempting cartwheels. Moses looks back at them every now and then and crows _mummies, look! _

"Thank you for not smothering me," she clarifies quietly.

Charity nods and squeezes her thigh. "You know I'm here."

"Yeah," Vanessa says, liking the way certainty sounds on her tongue, "I do." 


End file.
